Today’s Passings

Two civil rights bills are closer to becoming law, thanks to members of the state Senate.

A bill that would make it illegal for an employer to discriminate against a worker based on his or her sexual orientation was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee today.

Along with that, the Senate gave final approval to a bill that would give parolees the right to vote. Similar measures to protect gay and lesbian workers have been passed by the legislature twice, but were later vetoed. The bill was passed by a partisan vote of 6 to 4 in committee.

The parolee voting measure was passed by 21-13—a greater margin than when it was passed during the second reading—with one Republican crossing the aisle to support it.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.